Sick With It
by woodbox
Summary: Highly glossed-over sex, cussing, underage drinking. Awkward situations. Implied het, and Roxas picturing his mom doing the down-and-dirty. Axel/Roxas, Axel/Tifa


**Title**: Sick With It**  
Rating**: M**  
Length**: 4,315**  
Pairings**: Axel/Tifa, Axel/Roxas**  
Warnings**: The original prompt was "Axel/Roxas, Lob Lie-by-the-fire," provided by **suddenchangeofh**. That eventually became this, though the result looks nothing like the intended outcome. Kind of clichéd, but I guess we'll all have to live with that, won't we. :'D (edit: thank you, matt, for the beta!)**  
Disclaimer**: Kingdom Hearts is the abused child of Square Enix and Disney. I am making no profit by writing this.

The redhead drifts into town roughly a week after Roxas's mom breaks up with Steve. He doesn't know what to think of this guy with his cigarette behind his ear and his leather jacket. He rides a Honda Rebel past 7th Heaven and then back around, and he parks it across two spots, sideways. He ambles in whistling, hands in his pockets, inspecting everything on the walls from a distance and ignoring Roxas.

Roxas watches him over the tap, absently drying the same glass for longer than necessary. When the guy finally finishes messing with the broken jukebox, he slides onto a stool and slams a five down on the counter with his open palm, grinning genially. His eyes crinkle at the corners, and there's a small tattoo under each.

"Hey," he says, almost leering. "Can I get a beer? Whatever's fine."

"Sure." Roxas says. He swallows a sigh and turns to grab a glass off the wall, wincing when he hears his mom cuss from the kitchen. He can almost feel the way the guy's attention peaks when he hears a woman's voice, but maybe that's his imagination. Steve was, what, boyfriend number thirty-four? He thinks, for the hundredth time since he woke up at five a.m., that he can't wait to get the fuck out of this town.

The redhead drains the drink in one long gulp, head leaned back and his tan throat exposed. Roxas averts his eyes; he pulls out the bottom tray of the dish washer and starts to unload it, steam billowing up and stinging his eyes.

"Alright," the guy says, winking. He slides back off the stool and plays with the bucket of matchbooks while Roxas makes his change, and when he's done, he shoves the wad of money in his back pocket, salutes, and says, "See ya around, kid."

And then he's gone.

* * *

"New guy?" Seifer repeats, confused. He grinds the butt of his cigarette into the ashtray to the left of the sink, and looks at Roxas over his shoulder. "Tall guy? Punkass red hair?"

"Yeah," Roxas says, "That's him."

"Yeah, he's staying at the Highwind. Checked in this morning." Seifer's dad owns the motel down the road, and it's not often they get a new guest. "What about him?"

"What's his name?" Roxas says, irritated.

Seifer's lips twist into something decidedly evil, eyes narrowing. "Rox-ass," he says, "what d'ya want to know for? I know he's new in town, but lay off the man-eating for a while, will ya?"

Roxas doesn't know how to respond, so he rolls his eyes. Seifer laughs, shoving him a little too hard on the shoulder. "I'm taking my break," he says, as if he's actually done anything since he got there three hours ago. Roxas moves over and picks up the dishrag, checks the timer on the washer and looks out at the customers. There's not many people here, but it's a Thursday night and Seifer is stricter than Roxas's mom about underage drinking. Jack, this old guy who runs a movie theater in town, is at the bar, messing with the packets of sugar, and there's some flyaway blonde lady in a booth near the door, and her glass is looking achingly devoid of whiskey. Roxas shuffles over to her table, mindful of the papers hanging off the edge and the shredded book bag on the ground.

"Can I get you another?"

She nods, and just as Roxas wraps his fingers around the sweating tumbler, Tifa, Roxas's mother, enters the bar loudly from the kitchen. She's humming a little, and she looks less like death than she did that morning, so things are getting better. At the same time, the door to the bar opens, and Axel, the punkass redhead, wanders in.

For some indiscernible reason, Roxas's stomach sinks.

"Hey, blondie," Axel says. "They got you working nights, too?"

"Family business," Roxas says. His mom raises an eyebrow at him.

"Can I help you, mister?" she says. Roxas stares, hand tight around the empty glass.

Axel preens. "_Well_," he says, "I think that depends on your definition of 'help.'" From behind the bar, Tifa smiles, apparently flattered.

* * *

"I'm going to kill him," Roxas says. "I fucking swear!"

"Language," Marlene says, unfairly admonishing for an eight year old. "You say that about every guy mom brings home."

"Have you seen him?" Denzel asks. "He's probably young enough to be our big brother."

Roxas turns to glare at his little brother from the stove, brandishing a hot spoon. "I'll kill him if he touches her."

Marlene rolls her eyes. "They went to the movies, you know." She makes air quotes when she says "the movies." Denzel sighs.

"I'm going to throw up in the pasta," Roxas says. "Seriously."

Denzel rolls his eyes this time, and bumps his brother out of the way with his hip. Roxas wonders when he got so tall. He's what, twelve now?

"Anyway," Marlene says, paging through a catalogue of personalized checks, "There's nothing we can do about it now."

* * *

Roxas thinks this might be what it feels like to go insane. It's not like his mom is easy, but she's getting softer. His dad is long gone, and Roxas isn't even sure if he believes the "died in the war" story any more. Sure, they have pictures and his dog tags and his sword, and Roxas remembers him, strong and quiet and kind. Marlene and Denzel's dad is gone, too. Roxas remembers him, remembers thinking that that was it, that Leon would be the end of the dating game, that Leon would be a real _dad_. He was wrong.

There have been many, many men, and Roxas has hated almost all of them. All the assholes, all the entitled jackwads, all the schmucks who try to be "dad." He's hated them. He hates some of them more than others, of course, and he's liked a fair few of them, or he had, before they left. Sometimes he hates his mom, too, for letting herself be used like that.

But he's never _liked_ any of them. Not like this.

It's on a Saturday night, and Denzel is camping with junior scouts and Marlene is at a friend's house, and Roxas is sneaking in through the back, hand braced on the slipping screen door. It's two in the morning, way past his curfew, and he can feel the dirt from the lake water on his neck and in his hair. Hayner's idea, of course, and they'd almost gotten caught, but Roxas figures all was well that ended well.

Until he hears the banging. It takes him a minute to realize what it is, muffled sighs and his mom's pleading voice and—oh my _god_, he thinks. That's Axel's voice—he knows it by now, forced through two lunches with the guy and countless hours at the bar, listening to him entertain his mom with stupid stories. Well, okay, they aren't stupid stories, but Roxas finds them annoying. Who the fuck do these bastards think they are?

"_Fuck, Tifa—_"

Roxas wishes he had a gun. What he'd do with it, he isn't entirely sure, but he has a pretty good idea.

"MOM," he yells. "I'M HOME."

"_Oh, fuck_," Tifa says. "_Get out! Stop! Fuck!_"

Five seconds later, there's a loud crash, and Axel erupts into the hallway, looking pissed as fuck and his shirt held in a wad around what is obviously his erection. He shoots Roxas a glare, hissing softly as he tugs on his pants and shoes. Roxas opens the door for him. He forces a smile, maintains it long enough for Axel to pass him. When Axel pauses in the yard to tug on his shirt, Roxas gives his muscular back the finger. He tries not to notice the way Axel smells like sex and the way Axel winks at him when he's got his helmet on. That was a trick of light, right?

When Roxas turns around, letting the screen door bang shut, he sees his mom in the hallway, looking murderous.

"Hi, Roxas," she says. "Did you have fun?"

Roxas knows where this is going, so he makes a break for it, shouldering his way into his room and locking the door. He can shower in the morning. Or next week. Tifa only bangs on the door for five minutes, but she doesn't leave.

"Look," she says, after about fifteen minutes. "I'm sorry. I know you hate me for this, Roxas."

He doesn't respond—can't, when she sniffs loudly and gets up. He waits until he hears the door to her room close, and then collapses on his bed.

Fuck.

* * *

The real issue comes two hours later. Roxas hasn't been able to sleep. He keeps seeing that wink, over and over, muscles in Axel's back shifting under tanned skin, the angles of his waist and ribs, the defined chest. And Axel's dick, which he _totally did not see_.

But none of that is the problem. No, the problem is in his head, images his brain had so kindly put to the soundtrack of his mom's breathy "_A-axel_," and Axel's "_Fuck, Tifa_."

The real problem comes in the form of his hand around his dick, pulling, and the fact that he's _getting off_ on this. On imagining his mom getting fucked. But then it's not his mom, not the queen-sized bed under them, not Roxas's hand down his pants, but Axel's.

He comes quickly, breath thin, and tells himself he'll forget all about it in the morning.

It's a total lie, of course. In the morning (roughly three in the afternoon), Axel is sitting at the kitchen table, leaning over Marlene and making commentary as she pages through an American Girl magazine.

"Roxas," he says. "We thought maybe you'd died in there."

"Mom?" Roxas ignores Axel. Tifa ignores Roxas.

"Rox, guess what!" Marlene leans over the back of her chair, chin propped on her gripping fingers. Roxas isn't sure he wants to know. "Mom hired Axel to work at the bar! You don't have to help as much, anymore!"

"Isn't that great?" Tifa says. She turns around to smile at her daughter, and then a little more softly at Axel. She levels Roxas with a withering stare. "Why don't you go show him around."

Roxas can think of several good reasons why not, but he snaps his mouth shut, grabs an apron off the hook on the wall, and motions for Axel to follow.

* * *

"There's not much to show," Roxas says, glancing awkwardly around the rather small room. "Through there is the store room," he points to a door in the corner, almost hidden behind a poster of Lady Yuna from four years ago. "Seifer works Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays."

"Right, that loud kid," Axel says, and Roxas hates him a little less. "Look, about last night—"

"Don't," Roxas says. He feels his face getting hot, and hopes he isn't coloring. "It's fine."

Axel raises an eyebrow at him. "C'mon. No kid's okay with the guy fucking their mom. You've gotta be, what, seventeen?"

"And?" Roxas wishes he'd stop.

"I'm just saying. I'm not trying to move in and take over as man of the house or anything." Roxas's eyes narrow, but Axel doesn't notice. "You'll understand someday soon—it's just fun between adults."

Roxas can't control himself; he punches Axel in the face.

Axel reels backwards, hands flying to cup his nose, regarding his attacker through watery eyes. "Fuck" he says, but it's muffled by his palms. And then, nasally, "I guess I deserved that."

Roxas stalks back through the door. He can't decide if he's more pissed or jealous, and he throws his mom a dirty look. She eyes him suspiciously.

"Axel's bleeding. I'm going out."

"Roxas!"

* * *

"Dude, I think you're overreacting," Hayner says, a week later. "I mean, he's right, isn't he? Your mom is a grown up." He makes a crude motion, looped fingers sliding back and forth over his thumb. Roxas kicks him.

Olette shifts next to him, and he can feel unasked questions in the way she watches him. He's not sure he can talk about that.

"Sorry, Roxas, but I agree with Hayner," Pence says. He shrugs. "Your mom is probably _dying_, especially since Steve stopped putting out. Like months ago."

"We are not talking about my mom's sex life," Roxas says. "Ever. Again." _Especially_, he thinks, _since every time we do, I see her and Axel going at it_.

"I gotta split, anyway." Hayner slides out of the booth of the diner, skin only sticking a little. "Work in half an hour. Try not to get arrested, Roxas!"

Roxas rolls his eyes at Hayner's retreating back, and trades gestures with him through the window of the diner while he unhooks his bike. Pence excuses himself to the bathroom. Olette touches his arm lightly. "Roxas…?"

"Yeah?" he says, wary. "What's up?"

"Axel's pretty young, isn't he?"

"Yeah?"

"Early twenties?"

Roxas shrugs. "I guess. Why?"

"Are you jealous?"

He stares at her. "Uh," he says.

She blushes, and Pence slides back into the other bench of the booth. "What's going on?"

"Not jealous of Axel, I mean," she says, stuttering. "I mean, you're the man of the house—"

"Why does everyone keep talking about me being the man of the house?" Roxas interrupts. "I'm not!"

Olette falters. "Well, um."

"I'm leaving," Roxas says. "I can't talk about this shit." Olette obligingly slides out of the booth, and she gives him a hug before he can run out.

"I'm not trying to insult you," she says. "It's just—he's your type, isn't he?"

"Bye," Roxas says.

* * *

The bar is open, when he returns, but there are no customers, and Axel is alone behind the counter, rolling himself a cigarette.

"Where's mom?"

Axel looks up when he talks, eyes weary. "Your brother got hurt camping," he says, and Roxas's blood runs cold. "Don't worry," he adds. "It's just a broken arm. Apparently they already set it and everything. He's not even in pain anymore."

Roxas takes a deep breath, and shakily lowers himself onto a stool. It's almost eleven, he notes, and focuses on the clock above Axel's head.

"Your mom is staying at the hospital in town, and your sister is at her friend's for the night. They should be back tomorrow."

Roxas nods slowly.

"Until then, it's just you and me," Axel says. He grins, the same almost leer from the first day Axel'd been in town, and Roxas feels it up his spine.

Vaguely, he has a thought: This is wrong. He's my mom's boyfriend.

"Hey," he says, acting on a sudden thought. "Axel. What're you doing here?"

"Uh," Axel says. "Didn't I just—"

"No," Roxas says. "Like, here. In this town. Why are you here?"

"Oh." Axel looks at him critically, head tilted, eyes narrowed. "I'm travelling back east. Looking for somewhere I like, really."

"You like it here?" Roxas asks.

Axel shrugs.

There's a pause in the conversation. Axel turns to straighten the glasses on the back wall, fiddles with the empty coffee pots and turns the bottles so the labels all face out.

"Hey," Roxas says again. "How do you feel about underage drinking?"

Axel regards him carefully over his shoulder, and then smiles. "What people don't know can't hurt them, right?"

* * *

"After him, there was Beau. Blonde guy. Dancer, I think."

"A dancer?" Axel laughs, standing unsteadily to top off Roxas's glass. "How fucking gay is that."

"Not at all," Roxas says, utterly serious. "They fucked often and loudly. He was so arrogant, man."

"Bet he had a small dick," Axel says, pointing to Roxas as if this is something to argue about.

"Yeah? Maybe. Not like yours," Roxas says before he can stop himself. "Fuck."

Axel looks shocked, but his face curls around his teeth, and he leans onto one arm, looming over Roxas. "So you were looking?"

"Shut up," Roxas says. "I just happened to see!"

"Obviously it was on your mind. I don't blame you," Axel says. Roxas can smell the beer on his breath, the warmth of it against his face. "It's pretty memorable."

Roxas turns to stare, Axel's proximity distracting him from what's actually coming out of his mouth. Axel leans down more, and stops.

"We're so fucked," he says. Roxas leans up and licks Axel's bottom lip, and like that, they're kissing.

* * *

It's sloppy, since they're both drunk, and Roxas is sure his mom is gonna walk in any second now and disown him. Axel's sucking on his neck and he's got a hand down Roxas's pants, and it's all Roxas can do to palm the front of Axel's jeans, feeling his erection through the rough denim. Surge of sexual energy aside, it's almost three in the morning, and Roxas can feel himself fading. He's pretty sure he comes in his pants, or on Axel's hand, or both, and then Axel is shaking him awake, biting his lip.

"Roxas," he says urgently. "Roxas, are you okay with this?"

Roxas reaches out to paw at Axel's crotch again, yawning. "Okay with what?"

"Sex," Axel says, hissing as Roxas rubs him. "Sex with me."

"Yeah," Roxas says. He yawns again. "I'm sleepy. Sorry," he adds.

Axel looks pained, but he rubs a hand through his hair and laughs. "Yeah, yeah, save it." He rises, wipes his hand on the wet dishrag, and bends back down, pulling Roxas by the armpits. "Think you can make it to bed without me?"

Roxas staggers a little towards the kitchen, and braces himself against the counter. "Uh," he says. "Maybe."

Axel grins again. "Alright. Lemme close up, and we'll tuck you in or whatever." Roxas scoffs, but he leans hard against the counter and rubs his eyes, watching Axel as he walks awkwardly around, turning off the neon, pulling the mini-blinds. The front of his jeans is still strained and tented.

"Let me help," Roxas says when Axel returns to the bar, and he looks confused for a second. But Roxas stumbles onto him, presses a wet kiss just inside the collar of his shirt, and sinks to his knees. He's deliberate about unzipping Axel's pants, deliberate and careful about pulling down his briefs and touching his tongue to the head of Axel's dick.

It's unskilled and slow, but Axel doesn't complain. He fists his hands in Roxas's hair, hips jerking spastically once or twice. Roxas has to use his hands, and he doesn't manage to catch all the come in his mouth, strings of it splattered on his cheek and chin. Axel feels dirty, but that's never stopped him before. He grabs Roxas's hands from where they've settled on his legs and pulls him up.

"C'mon," he says, voice thin. "Let's get you to bed."

It's not the kiss he gives Roxas, face covered in his own semen, and it's not the way he helps Roxas change into clean pants, but rather the way he softly wipes him down, carefully towelling the come off Roxas's face and abdomen. It's almost embarrassing, and in a moment of ill-advised drunken mental wandering, Roxas wonders if he's this nice with Tifa.

* * *

"Don't you dare fuck with me, Axel," is the first thing Roxas hears when he wakes up. The past four days have been absolute torture. Axel is right there, and Roxas wants more and he figures Axel might want more, too. And he watches Axel kiss his mom and wonders what that feels like for Axel. What's the chemistry, there?

"Tifa, babe, what's the problem?"

"The levels in the tap and the revenue don't match, _babe_." She's waving a paper at him when Roxas stumbles into the kitchen. Denzel is staring into his cereal, bright blue cast resting in a sling across his stomach. Marlene is curled on the couch in the living room, some clothes catalogue inches from her nose.

"What's the difference, mom?" Roxas says.

She turns to look at him, face clouded with anger. "About thirty dollars," she says.

"It's my fault."

Both Axel and his mom stare at him. Denzel goes still over his fruit loops.

"Hayner and I—I thought it'd be okay. I'll pay you back. We didn't do anything stupid, I swear." Roxas shrugs. "I'm sorry."

Tifa sighs. "Roxas, I wish you would've just told me."

"Yeah," he says.

"You know I don't mind, as long as you're not driving."

"Yeah."

She turns to smile at Axel, who shrugs. "Sorry," she says.

"Nah, I understand," he says, smiling back. Tifa wanders back into the bar, and Axel mouths a 'thank you' to Roxas before following her. Denzel gives him an odd, searching look, and Roxas wishes, not for the first time, that he could get the fuck out of this place.

* * *

"Thanks for that," Axel says for the five millionth time. "The other day, I mean."

Roxas rolls his eyes. Tifa is taking Denzel to get his cast checked on, so Roxas is minding the bar with Axel. Marlene is sitting in the booth by the jukebox, a stack of tattered catalogues on the table next to her. "It's not like I'd rat you out," he whispers.

Axel smirks at him, then laughs. "No, I guess not."

The door chimes, and the flyaway blonde is back, book bag clinging to her shoulder. Roxas goes to take her the usual glass of whiskey, and she thanks him without speaking. When he gets back to the bar, Axel opens the dish washer and hands him the driest rag.

Conversationally, Roxas says, "I turn eighteen next week."

Axel goes very still, fingers barely brushing the rim of a wine glass. "Oh?" he says.

"Yeah," Roxas says, eyes carefully on the mug he's drying. "After that, I can leave here."

"Cool," Axel says, but he says it slowly, gaze locked on Roxas, studying him. "Good for you."

"So," Roxas continues, wincing a little. "I was wondering if you had room for two on that bike of yours."

Axel stares at him.

And stares.

"Are you asking what I think you're asking?" he says at last. "Because yeah, there is. And—wow," he says.

"Y-yeah," Roxas says. He turns to look at Axel, catching Marlene's glance from the corner of his eye. "I am."

Axel maintains eye contact with him, like he's making sure Roxas isn't joking, and it occurs to them simultaneously that this is a bad place to have this conversation.

* * *

Hayner buys him a lottery ticket for his birthday. It's one of those scratch cards, and he ends up winning twenty five dollars, so it's his favorite present. Olette buys him a nice shirt, some button-up thing that she swears he'll look good in, and Pence gives him a picture of the four of them. By the time he leaves the diner, he feels pleased, but very, very guilty.

No one knows what he's planning, except for Axel.

His mom is waiting at home with another cake, a monstrosity iced in chocolate with only one candle on it. He blows it out and wishes that everyone will forgive him, and Tifa looks happy. Usually, the boyfriends hang all over her. Arms around her, hands on her stomach, in her pockets. Possession, it seems, doesn't suit her. Axel sits across from her at the table, exchanging knowing looks, unsettlingly fond. Marlene and Denzel get sent to bed after they hug their brother, and Roxas squeezes them extra hard.

"Game's up, Roxas," his mom says. In his peripheral vision, Axel brings his hand to his face.

"What?" he says. He stares at her questioningly, but she doesn't falter.

"You think I wouldn't notice if you did your own laundry? Cleaned your room? _Packed a bag_?" She sounds strangely calm. "Where are you going?"

"I dunno," Roxas says. He's being honest. "East, I guess."

Axel is watching Tifa warily. She notices. "East?" she asks him.

"Fuck," he says. "Yeah, east."

She looks really critical for a moment, like she'll ground Roxas or start yelling or throwing things at Axel, but then she nods.

"Okay," she says.

Axel's hand falls away from his face.

"Just make sure you call me at least once a week, for a while, at least." She turns to Axel. "And you, try to be more faithful."

"Wha—" he says, but she rolls her eyes at him.

"It's kind of painfully obvious," she says, "when you whisper my son's name in your sleep. Don't worry," she adds, laughing, "I'm not offended or anything. It's awkward as hell, but I'm not offended. Cid told me you'd checked out this morning."

Both boys (men?) are struck speechless, looking from Tifa to one another. She laughs again, and ruffles her son's hair. "Well," she says, "I'm going to bed. I guess I'll talk to you soon."

She gives Roxas a hug and a kiss, and Axel a sort of glare-and-wink over her shoulder, and retreats to her bedroom.

"Dude," Axel says.

"Yeah," Roxas agrees.

* * *

They take off about two hours later, when the shock wears off. Roxas slings his bag across his back, wondering one last time if this is okay.

Axel hands him a motorcycle helmet, white and black checked, and rests a hand on his shoulder. "Hope it's okay," he says. "It's all they had."

"Yeah," Roxas says. "It's great." He offers Axel a smile. "Thanks."

Axel shrugs, grinning. "Nah," he says. "Don't worry about it. Happy Birthday."

Roxas waits for Axel to mount the bike first, watching the way his legs go out to balance it. Axel's got the helmet in his hands, ready to go, but Roxas leans forward and kisses him, unable to resist. Axel smiles at him, surprised, and laughs.

"C'mon," he says, "We're wasting time."

Roxas laughs, too. "Yeah," he says. "We've got places to be."

+_end_+


End file.
